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WILLIAM PENN 



THOMAS B. MACAULAY: 

BRIEF OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHARGES ^¥{^ 



MR. MACAULAY'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 



AGAINST THE 



CHARACTER OF WILLIAM PENN. 
BY W. E. FORSTER. 



KEVISED FOR THE AMERICAN EDITION BY THE AUTHOR. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
HENRY LONGSTRETH, 

No. 347, MARKET STREET. 
1850. 



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WILLIAM PENN, 

AND 

T. B. MACAULAY 



The following remarks on the strictures lately made by a po- 
pular writer on the character of William Penn, were originally 
written as a preface to a new edition of Clarkson's Life of 
Penn,* but the surprise those strictures have so generally caused 
seems to call for the separate publication of an attempt to reply 
to them. 

Of the nature of these charges hardly any one will be ignorant. 
Mr. Macaulay's " History of England" has throughout England 
been read and admired. Whether its accuracy will stand the 
test of critical inquiry the future public will decide ; but there 
can be no question that, as a story well told and pleasant to listen 
to, it has bewitched the ears of the public of to-day, and that 
eventually it will rank, if not as an actual history, at least as a 
most attractive and eloquent historical romance. 

In turning over its pages, so full of descriptive and oratorical 
power, we feel as though we were wandering through a gallery 
of pictures, or rather in quick succession they flit before our eyes, 
for the reader has no work to do — is merely required to look, 
not think — portraits so vivid, features so striking, that, in our 
admiration of the artist's talent, we care not to inquire whether 
they are really likenesses, true copies from nature, or merely the 
creations of his own fancy. 

Still, when a figure comes before us such as Penn's, which we 

* Memoirs of the Public and Private Life of William Penn, by Thomas Clark- 
eon, M. A. New edition, with a Preface, in reply to the charges made by Mr. 
Macaulay in his History of England, by W. E. Forster. London : Charles Gilpin, 
i, Bishopsgate Street Without. 

3 



think we ought to know, we cannot but start up and ask, Can 
this mean and repulsive countenance, in real truth, belong to one 
whom we have so long been accustomed to regard with respect, 
we may almost say with reverence 1 

For the page of our history is not so rich in illustrations of 
nobility and worth, that we can afford to barter away any one 
of them, not even in exchange for all the fine pictures of Mr. 
Macaulay ; and if his portrait of Penn be in truth a caricature, 
the talent of the painter makes it all the more necessary to at- 
tempt to prove that it is not a likeness. 

That it is not the portrait by which Penn is generally known, 
Mr. Macaulay himself allows : — " To speak the whole truth con- 
" cerning him," he says, in his brief sketch, at the first mention 
of his name, " is a task which requires some courage ; for he is 
" rather a mythical than a historical person. Rival nations and 
" hostile sects have agreed in canonizing him. England is proud 
" of his name. A great commonwealth beyond the Atlantic re- 
" gards him with a reverence similar to that which the Atheni- 
" ans felt for Theseus, and the Romans for Quirinus. The re- 
" spectable society of which he was a member honours him as 
" an apostle. By pious men of other persuasions he is generally 
" regarded as a bright pattern of Christian virtue. Meanwhile 
"admirers of a very different sort have sounded his praises. 
** The French philosophers of the eighteenth century pardoned 
" what they regarded as his superstitious fancies in consideration 
'• of his contempt for priests, and of his cosmopolitan benevolence, 
" impartially extended to all races and to all creeds. His name 
" has thus become, throughout all civilised countries, a synonyme 
** for probity and philanthropy."* 

But is not this verdict of posterity, so unanimous and so fa- 
vourable, which the historian thus records, not because he agrees 
with it, but rather to enhance his own valour in daring to dispute 
it, in itself, by the very fact of its existence, strong argument in 
behalf of its own truthfulness? for man is not so prodigal of 
praise as to bestow it on his fellow without a reason. If a repu- 
tation outlives the power of its possessor, there is good ground 
to believe it is the reward of his deeds. Time tests us by what 

* Macaulay, vol. i. p. 507. The^rst edition of Macaulay is the edition referred 
to throughout this pamphlet. 



we are, not seem to be : only the fruitful plant escapes its scythe ; 
the weed, however rank, is relentlessly mown down. Many a 
world-wide renown follows its owner to the grave ; the bubble 
bursts when the breath leaves him who has blown it ; but it is 
hard to find an instance in which after ages have wasted honour 
on the worthless — lavished laurels where contempt would have 
been fitting. Posterity pays rather than gives — is just more than 
generous. A man who was persecuted during his lifetime, then 
slandered and hated by not a few, but who, now that almost two 
centuries have elapsed, is thus honoured and revered by all creeds 
and parties, may perchance be what Mr. Macaulay chooses to 
term a " mythical person," but if so, there is at least a meaning 
in the myth, for in fact no myth can be formed out of a false- 
hood ; the very condition of its existence is that there must be 
truth and worth in its subject : it is only the heroes of history 
whom she deigns to clothe with a mythical garment ; the halo, 
however misty, proves that within must shine a light. 

Mr. Macaulay, however, it is plain, does not believe in Penn, 
not even as the subject of a myth. He is a historical sceptic, or 
at best a rationalist. See how ingeniously he tries to undermine 
the fabric of this mythical renown : — " Nor is this reputation," 
he adds, " altogether unmerited. Penn was without doubt a man 
" of eminent virtues. He had a strong sense of religious duty, 
" and a fervent desire to promote the happiness of mankind. On 
" one or two points of high importance he had notions more cor- 
" rect than were in his day common, even among men of enlarged 
"minds; and, as the proprietor and legislator of a province, 
" which, being almost uninhabited when it came into his posses- 
" sion, afforded a clear field for moral experiments, he had the 
" rare good fortune of being able to carry his theories into prac- 
" tice without any compromise, and yet without any shock to 
" existing institutions. He will always be mentioned with honour 
" as the founder of a colony, who did not, in his dealings with a 
" savage people, abuse the strength derived from civilisation, and 
" as a lawgiver, who, in an age of persecution, made religious 
" liberty the corner-stone of a polity. But his writings and his 
" life furnish abundant proofs that he was not a man of strong 
" sense. He had no skill in reading the characters of others. 
" His confidence in persons less virtuous than himself led him 



•• into great errors and misfortunes. His enthusiasm for one 
" great principle sometimes impelled him to violate other great 
" principles which he ought to have held sacred. Nor was his 
" integrity altogether proof against the temptations to which it 
" was exposed in that splendid and polite, but deeply corrupted 
" society, with which he now mingled. The whole court was in 
♦' a ferment with intrigues of gallantry and intrigues of ambition. 
"The traffic in honours, places, and pardons was incessant. It 
" was natural that a man who was daily seen at the palace, and 
♦'who was known to have free access to majesty, should be fre- 
" quently importuned to use his influence for purposes which a 
" rigid morality must condemn. The integrity of Penn had stood 
" firm against obloquy and persecution. But now, attacked by 
"royal smiles, by female blandishments, by the insinuating elo- 
" quence and delicate flattery of veteran diplomatists and cour- 
" tiers, his resolution began to give way. Titles and phrases 
" against which he had often borne his testimony dropped occa- 
" sionally from his lips and his pen. It would be well if he had 
" been guilty of nothing worse than such compliances with the 
" fashions of the world. Unhappily it cannot be concealed that 
" he bore a chief part in some transactions condemned, not merely 
" by the rigid code of the society to which he belonged, but by 
" the general sense of all honest men. He afterwards solemnly 
"protested that his hands were pure from illicit gain, and that 
" he never received any gratuity from those whom he had obliged, 
" though he might easily, while his influence at court lasted, have 
" made a hundred and twenty thousand pounds. To this asser- 
" tion full credit is due. But bribes may be offered to vanity as 
" well as to cupidity, and it is impossible to deny that Penn was 
" cajoled into bearing a part in some unjustifiable transactions, 
" of which others enjoyed the profits."* 

It is difficult not to admire the skill with which, in this passage, 
the writer glides from praise to contempt, ingeniously giving the 
impression that the praise is but in complaisance to the probable 
prejudices of his reader, the blame his own courageous convic- 
tion ; and yet, if the two opinions be contrasted together, they 
can hardly, all allowance being given for the inconsistency of 
human nature, be made to fit. "A sense of religious duty" can 

* Macaulay, vol. i. p. 508. 



scarcely be called " strong" which does not save its possessor 
from " transactions condemned by the sense of all honest men," 
even though " bribes be offered to his vanity ;" and it is strange 
that one " whose life furnishes abundant proof that he was not a 
" man of strong sense" should not only have " notions on points 
" of high importance more correct than were in his day common 
" even among men of enlarged mands," but should be " able to 
" carry his theories into practice," and practice so successful 
that " he will always," excepting of course by Mr. Macaulay, 
"be mentioned with honour." 

But leaving for the present this preliminary sketch, which, con- 
sisting merely of assertion without attempt at proof, does not in- 
deed of itself need notice, except as evidence of the animus of its 
author, we must pass on to the special charges upon which this 
general character appears to be grounded. 

The first charge is in connexion with the infamous profit to 
which the maids of honour of James's court succeeded in turning 
Monmouth's rebellion, by the bargain which they drove with the 
friends of the young girls of Taunton, who, in the Duke's march 
through that town, had presented him with a standard. Mr. 
Macaulay's statement is as follows. After mentioning the thou- 
sand guineas which the Queen Mary of Modena had cleared on 
a cargo of rebels sentenced to be transported, he adds: — "We 
" cannot wonder that her attendants should have imitated her 
" unprincely greediness and her unwomanly cruelty. They ex- 
" acted a thousand pounds from Roger Hoare, a merchant of 
" Bridgewater, who had contributed to the military chest of the 
" rebel army. But the prey on which they pounced most eagerly 
" was one which it might have been thought that even the most 
" ungentle natures would have spared. Alread}' some of the girls 
" who had presented the standard to Monmouth at Taunton had 
" cruelly expiated their offence. # * * Most of the 
" young ladies, however, who had walked in the procession were 
" still alive. Some of them were under ten years of age. All 
"had acted under the orders of their schoolmistress, without 
" knowing that they were committing a crime. The Queen's 
" maids of honour asked the royal permission to wring money 
" out of the parents .of the poor children ; and the permission was 
" granted. An order was sent down to Taunton that all these 



" little girls should be seized and imprisoned. Sir Francis Warre, 
" of Hestcrcombe, the Tory member for Bridgewater, was re- 
" quested to undertake the office of exacting the ransom. He 
" was charged to declare in strong language that the maids of 
" honour would not endure delay, that they were determined to 
"prosecute to outlawry, unless a reasonable sum were forth- 
" coming, and that by a reasonable sum was meant seven thou- 
" sand pounds. Warre excused himself from taking any part in 
" a transaction so scandalous. The maids of honour then re- 
" quested William Penn to act for them ; and Penn accepted the 
" commission. Yet it should seem that a little of the pertinacious 
" scrupulosity which he had often shown about taking off his hat 
" would not have been altogether out of place on this occasion. 
" He probably silenced the remonstrances of his conscience by 
" repeating to himself that none of the money which he extorted 
" would go into his own pocket ; that if he refused to be the agent 
*' of the ladies they would find agents less humane ; that by com- 
" plying he should increase his influence at the court ; and that 
" his influence at the court had already enabled him, and might 
" still enable him, to render great services to his oppressed breth- 
" ren. The maids of honour were at last forced to content them- 
" selves with less than a third part of what they had demanded."* 

This is the story, and one disclosing more centemptible cruelty 
it is scarcely possible to imagine. Innocent girls, whose sole 
offence was obedience to the orders of their mistress, thrown into 
a dungeon in order that maids of honour may exact a ransom 
for their liberty — the scrupulous Quaker acting as broker in this 
vile speculation, accepting the commission which the Tory cava- 
lier had refused : if this- story be as he tells it, Mr. Macaulay 
may well say that Penn's integrity was no proof against " female 
blandishment." A transaction so mean, so hypocritical, would 
indeed deserve the opprobrium " of all honest men." No defence 
could be attempted of a deed which no possible motive could 
justify, and the reader could only wonder what can be Mr. Ma- 
caulay's definition of the " religious duty," with " a strong sense" 
of which he declares its perpetrator to have been endued. 

Doubtless the charge is bad enough, but now what are the 
proofs? 

* Macaulay, vol. i. p. 656. 



The only one of the authorities Mr. Macaulay quotes in refe- 
rence to this case, in which there is any allusion to Penn, is the 
following letter from the Earl of Sunderland, the then Home Se- 
cretary, a copy of which is in the State Paper Office : — 

« Whitehall, Fehry. I'Sth, 1685-6, 
« Mr. Penne — Her Maj"** Maids of Honour having acquainted me, 
that they designe to employ you and Mr. Walden in making a compo- 
sition with the Relations of the Maids of Taunton for the high Misde- 
meanor they have been guilty of, I do at their request hereby let you 
know that her Maj*y has been pleased to give their Fines to the said 
maids of Honor, and therefore recommend it to Mr. Walden and you to 
make the most advantageous composition you can in their behalfe. 
" I am, Sir, your humble servant, 

" Sunderland P."* 

This letter, to which no reply can be found either in the State 
Paper Office or elsewhere, is the sole proof upon which the 
charge is grounded : there exists no collateral evidence whatever 
confirming its receipt by Penn, much less his acceptance of its 
commission: it is not even certain that it was addressed to him. 
The address in the State Paper Office is not "William Penn, 
Esq.," nor William Penn at all, but plain Mr. Penne, and there- 
fore it is quite possible that it was intended for a certain " George 
Penne,"t who it appears was instrumental in effecting the release 
from slavery of a Mr. Azariah Pinney, a gentleman of Bettes- 
combe, near Crewkerne, in Somersetshire, whose sentence to 
death had been commuted to transportation.:]: 

But allowing that Sunderland's letter was addressed to William 
Penn, what does it prove 1 Not that he undertook the office in 
question, but merely that " the maids of honour having ac- 
quainted" the Secretary " that they designed to employ him and 
" a Mr. Walden, he therefore recommended it to Mr. Walden and 
" to him to make the most advantageous composition they can in 
^' their behalf" 

Mark, Sunderland rests his recommendation not on any pre- 

* State Paper Office. Letter Book, 1G79-1688. Domestic Various. No. 629, 
p. 324. 

t Possibly the same G. Pen mentioned by Pepys in his " Diary," April 4, 1660. 

t See Robert's Life of Monmouth (vol. ii. p. 243,) whose authority is family let- 
ters in the possession of Mr. Pinney's descendants. 



V 10 

vious communication between himself and Penn, nor between 
Penn and the maids of honour, but merely on their "design to 
employ" him and another; how then can we tell that Penn was 
even privy to such design? The case of the Taunton maids ex- 
cited no little interest both at the time and since, but neither in 
the official documents connected therewith, nor in any general 
history, nor in the local records, is there any other allusion to 
Penn, nor is there any mention whatever of the matter in either 
his own letters or biography. 

Surely then, even on his own authority, Mr. Macaulay's posi- 
tive assertion that " the maids of honour requested William Penn 
" to act for them," and that he " accepted the commission," is an 
unwarrantable assumption. 

There is, however, one historian, and that too a contemporary, 
almost an eye-witness, by whom this assertion is not confirmed 
but contradicted. Oldmixon, in his History, gives the following 
account of the transaction : — " The Court was so unmerciful, that 
"they excepted the poor girls of Taunton, who gave Monmouth 
" colours, out of their pretended pardon, and every one of them 
"^ was forced to pay as much money as would have been a good 
" portion to each for particular pardons. This money, and a 
" great deal more, was said to be for the maids of honour, ivhose 
" agent Brent, the Popish laioyer, had an under agent, one Crane 
^Utf Bridgewater, and 'tis supposed that both of them paid them- 
" selves very bountifully out of the money which was raised by 
" this means, some instances of which are within my knowledge."* 
Now, though it may be alleged that Oldmixon is by no means an 
infallible guide, not bearing a very high character for accuracy, 
yet in a case like this, some of the circumstances of which he 
declares to have been " within his own knowledge," which may 
be well believed, seeing he was, as Mr. Macaulay says, when 
quoting him in reference to Monmouth's entrance into Taunton, 
" then a boy living very near the scene of these events,"! in fact 
at Bridgewater itself,f so that he was Crane's fellow-townsman, 
his testimony would at least seem worthy of notice. 

* Oldmixon, vol. ii. p. 708. 

t Macaulay, vol. i. p. 580. Also Mackintosh's History of the Revolution, pp. 13; 
21,24. 

J Macaulay, vol. i. p. 612. 



11 

Moreover, Penn having been his personal acquaintance,* had 
he really acted as broker in th.ys business, Oldmixon could scarcely 
have been ignorant of the fact. Still, strange as it may seem, 
Mr. Macaulay, who often quotesf him, in one case by himself,:}: 
and even gives him as an authority§ in an earlier part of this 
very story of the Taunton maids, completely passes him by, when 
his evidence would thus disturb his hypothesis of Penn's hypo- 
crisy. This account also has some slight collateral support, 
which Mr. Macaulay's has not, for we find, from a petition in the 
State Paper Office from one suspected of having been engaged 
in the rebellion, endorsed Brent, and also from a passage in the 
second Lord Clarendon's Diary, wherein he says that a " Lady 
" Tipping had offered Mr. Brent ,£200 to get a noli prosequi,''^ 
that " this vile wretch," as OldmixonU calls him, was an acknow- 
ledged pardon-broker, and therefore a very probable agent for 
these maids of honour to employ. Again, the wording of the 
warrant, dated March 11, 1686-7, is worth attention. It states, 
that it is " his Majesty's pleasure that these maids, or their rela- 
" tions and friends, who have compounded or shall compound, 
" with the agent employed by her Majesty's said maids of honour, 
"shall not,"** &c. The word agent is applicable enough to 
Oldmixon's version, viz., that Brent was the agent of the maids 
of honour and Crane merely his sub-agent, but if Sunderland's 
recommendation had been carried out, and both Penn and Walden 
employed, the plural number would probably have been used. 

But granting, which we think the reader will hardly be dis- 
posed to do, that Brent's agency is an invention of Oldmixon, 
and Penn's interference is proved, even then, as is stated by a 
previous historian,!! " the transaction presents two phases," and 
Penn migh^ doubtless have " thought not of the lucre of the traf- 
«* fickers, hot of the mercy which they sold." In our utter igno- 

* Oldmixon's Account of British Colonies, printed 1708; quoted in Proud's His- 
tory of Pennsylvania, vol. i. pp. 244-486. 

t Macaulay, vol. i. pp. 588, 596, 602-4-5, 635, &c. 

X Macaulay, vol. i. p. 593. 

§ Macaulay, vol. i. p. 586. 

II Clarendon's Diary, March 19, 1687-8. 

T Oldmixon, p. 708. 

** State Paper Warrant Office Book, ii. 219. 

tt Roberts, vol. ii. p. 241. 



12 

ranee of all the circumstances which preceded his interference, 
allowing he did interfere, why should we not suppose that the 
relations of the girls, who it must be remembered had been seized 
and their ransom allotted before the date of Sunderland's letter, 
had applied to Penn as a man of influence, honesty, and benevo- 
lence, to intercede in their behalf, and that the Secretary's com- 
mission was in consequence of such application, and the diminu- 
tion of the ransom " to less than one-third of the original demand"* 
his reward for his trouble. This view of the matter Mr. Ro- 
berts, the writer above quoted, we observe takes, and though also 
an assumption, it is no ways more gratuitous than Mr. Macau- 
lay's, and has at least the advantage of being in accordance with 
Penn's general character. In one expression which he uses, Mr. 
Macaulay seems himself to lean to this interpretation, when he 
states that the Quaker probably " silenced the remonstrances of 
" his conscience by repeating to himself that if he refused to be 
" the agent they would find others less humane," but in this case 
he would not have designated the commission which he says 
Penn accepted as a " scandalous transaction," nor called it an 
" office of exacting ransom." These terms, together with his 
previous remarks, show clearly enough that he chooses to con- 
sider Penn as having been, not an intercessor for mercy, but an 
abettor of cruelty, pandering to oppression in order that his vanity 
might be pampered. 

Possibly Mr. Macaulay may conceive that no one, not even a 
Quaker, gifted with " a strong sense of religious duty," can with- 
stand the " blandishments" of a maid of honour, but at least he 
should have satisfied himself that these blandishments were used, 
before he gives this least probable — this most uncharitable inter- 
pretation of a fact, which, though asserted by himself as un- 
doubted, is in itself most doubtful, contradicted by the testimony 
of a competent contemporary — the sole evidence in support of 
which is a commission which we can not be sure was addressed 
to, and which we have no reason to believe was accepted by, 
the party whom he accuses. 

If by " mythical" Mr. Macaulay means fabulous, distorted, ex- . 
aggerated, it is now easy to understand why he calls Penn a 

* Macaulay, vol. i. p. 656. 



13 

* mythical person." He would indeed be such if his character 
depended on his description ; for assertions thus established, de- 
ductions thus inferred, may make up a romance, or, if men choose 
to believe them, even constitute a myth, but can scarcely claim 
the title of history. 

Dismissing the maids of honour, the next mention of Penn by 
Mr. Macaulay, and therefore the next insinuation against his 
character, for he never, after the first introduction of his name, 
alludes to him except disparagingly, is in his description of the 
legal murders of Gaunt and Cornish. The manner in which he 
describes Penn's presence at these executions, " for whom," he 
says, " exhibitions which humane men generally avoid seem to 
" have had strong attraction,"* affords a striking instance of his 
unaccountable determination to give the worst possible colour to 
every one of his acts. He seems to suppose that his motive must 
have been, like Selwyn's, a passion for seeing hanging, or at best 
an idle curiosity. Clarkson's remarks and quotations fi'om Bur- 
net, who notoriously disliked him, show that it was much more 
probably a wish to be able to make a true report, and therefore 
an effective remonstrance to the King ; and enable us to pass on 
to another charge, upon which also it is not needful to dwell, for 
though a direct, it is by no means a dangerous attack, Mr. Ma- 
caulay himself providing the defence, the statement he makes in 
his text being contradicted by the authority he quotes in its mar- 
gin. In his description of the efforts which James made, towards 
the end of his reign, to win the aid of the Dissenters in his strug- 
gles, he gives the case of Kiffin, a London Baptist, of high influ- 
ence, both from his wealth and worth. Two of Kithn's grand- 
sons had been executed, or rather murdered, by sentence of the 
Bloody Assizes; no wonder, therefore, that, justly regarding the 
King with personal as well as political abhorrence, he wished to 
decline the alderman's gown, which was offered to him to secure 
his support. 

While his acceptance of this office was in suspense (for though 
Mr. Macaulay gives the impression that Kiffin did not accept it, 
his ow^n Memoirs state distinctly that, after six weeks' considera- 
tion, he did), " Penn," says Mr Macaulay, " was employed in 
" the work of seduction, but to no purpose."! 

* Macaulay, vol. i. p. 665. t Macaulay, vol. ii. p. 230. 



14 

At the foot of the page containing this sentence are two refer- 
ences, viz., " Kiffin's Memoirs," and " Luso-n's Letter to Brooke." 
In the letter there is no allusion to Penn, but in the Memoirs we 
find the following : — " In a little after a great temptation attended 
" me, which was a commission from the King to be one of the 
*' aldermen of the city of London, which, as soon as I heard of 
" it, I used all the means I could to be excused, both by some 
" lords near the King, and also by Sir Nicholas Butler and Mr. 
" Penn."* The prejudice, for we can really find no better word, 
must indeed be powerful, which can thus induce an historian to 
pervert Kiffin's acknowledgment that he made use of Penn to get 
excused into a proof that " Penn was employed by the King in 
" the work of seduction." 

The accusation which must now be noticed is one which will 
require a more detailed examination. The Quaker is again re- 
presented as acting the base part of a political pimp, but the ob- 
ject of the King is not now merely the gain of the vote and in- 
terest of one London alderman, though a Baptist to boot, but the 
delivery of the fair foundation of Magdalen College, w^ith all its 
rich lands, into the arms of the greedy Jesuits. In order, how- 
ever, to form a just judgment of Penn's conduct in this matter, 
the story of the case, up to the time of his interference, must, 
though well known, be briefly recapitulated. 

In March, 1687, the President of Magdalen College died; the 
King, not satisfied with having secured University and Christ 
Church Colleges for the Roman Catholics, seized this opportunity 
to spread the sway of his faith, and sent down letters mandatory 
to the fellows, recommending them to elect to the vacant place 
one Antony Farmer, a notorious libertine, but as a renegade 
Papist a fit man to serve the purpose of the Court, though there- 
fore all the more odious to the members of the College. By the 
statutes of the foundation the right of election rested with the 
fellows, but in case the Court proposed a candidate duly qualified, 
it had not been unusual to accept its nomination. Against such 
an appointment as this, however, the fellows protested, most 
reasonably, but in vain, and at length, having postponed as long 
as possible the election, in the fruitless hope that some attention 
would be paid to their protest, they appointed, on the 15th of 

* KifSn's Memoirs, edited by Orme, p. 84. 



15 

April, Dr. Hough, a divine, whom Mr. Macaulay justly describes 
as " a man of eminent virtue and prudence." At this act, by 
which, while vindicating their rights, they defied the Royal wish, 
James was, as might be expected, greatly enraged : accordingly, 
in June, the fellows were cited to appear before the High Com- 
mission, by whom Hough's election was annulled ; but abundant 
proof having been given of Farmer's vicious habits, his name 
was silently dropped as too disgraceful to press, and fresh letters 
mandatory were sent down in August, ordering the fellows forth- 
with to choose as their President, Parker, the Bishop of Oxford. 

Parker, though not an avowed was a suspected Papist, and, 
as such, and as a well-known partisan of the Papist party, most 
distasteful to the fellows, who, fortunately for the expression of 
their dislike, were able to rest their opposition to his appointment 
on tv^'o valid legal objections. Hough was their duly elected 
President ; their oath, therefore, bound them to support him ; and 
even had the Presidency been vacant, they were sworn to ap- 
point a fellow of either New College or Magdalen, neither of 
which conditions Parker fulfilled. On these grounds, therefore, 
they respectfully declined to obey the King's order, stating they 
could not without perjuring themselves. Thus far had the dis- 
pute proceeded, when, on the 3d of September, James, in the 
course of his progress, arrived at Oxford. On the day after his 
arrival he sent for the disobedient fellows, they tendered him a 
petition, he refused to accept it, and in great wrath ordered them 
to be " gone to their home" — that instant " to repair to their 
*' chapel," and as they feared " the weight of his hand," " elect 
" the Bishop of Oxford."* To their chapel they retired, to con- 
sult whether they should obey their Sovereign or abide by their 
oath, and to their lasting honour they boldly resolved to do the 
latter. 

At this stage of the conflict Penn for the first time appears on 
the field, and it will now be necessary to quote Mr. Macaulay, 
at full length, in doing which it may be well to put side by side 
with his account that contained in Wilmot's Life of Hough, from 
which he probably obtained his information. The word probably 
is used, because, as Mr. Macaulay quotes no reference in his 
story of Penn's interference, it is impossible to define with cer- 

* Wilmot's Life of Hough, p. 15. 



16 

tainty the authorities on which he grounds it; but though the 
Life of Hour^h is not in the list of authors which at the end of 
his report of the Magdalen College case he gives en masse, leav- 
ing his reader to allot as he best can the special circumstances 
to each, still as it is evident, from his text, that he consulted this 
work, and as, moreover, it contains a statement impartial, or, if 
biassed at all, certainly against Penn, and the only one profess- 
ing to be a complete relation of the facts, its comparison with 
Mr. Macaulay will show how far he is justified in his assertions. 
One remark, however, is needed before making these quota- 
tions. By a mode of lumping facts, which, though with most 
historians it would be accounted strange, is by no means rare 
with Mr. Macaulay, whose artistic fancy not unfrequently in- 
duces him to sacrifice accuracy of perspective in his pictures to 
effect in the grouping of his figures, he manages to give the im- 
pression that the transaction he describes was one incident, or 
at least an unbroken series of events, instead of comprising, as 
was the case, three distinct incidents occupying altogether a 
space of more than a month. In order, therefore, fairly to test, 
or in fact to understand his narrative, it will be needful to follow 
the example of a previous critic,* and to divide it into three dis- 
tinct parts ; and if, in so doing, it be objected that sentences which 
are intended to apply to one occurrence are quoted as referring 
to another, all that can be said is, that every care has been taken 
to apportion the descriptions to those circumstances to which 
they appear to be least inapplicable : — 

MACAULAY-I WILMOT's LIFE OF H0UGh4 

" The King, greatly incensed " It appears, from Anthony a 

and mortified by his defeat," (viz., Wood's account of this visit," (viz., 

the refusal of the fellows to admit the King's visit to Oxford,) " that 

Parker as their President,) " quit- W. Penn, who attended the King 

ted Oxford and rejoined the Queen to Oxford, went afterwards to 

at Bath. His obstinacy and vio- Magdalen College ; and although 

lence had brought him into an em- he at first hoped to persuade the 

barrassing position. He had trust- fellows to comply with the King's 

ed too much to the effect of his wishes, yet, when he heard the 

frowns and angry tones, and had statement of their case, he was 

rashly staked not only the credit satisfied that they could not com- 

of his administration, but his per- ply without a breach of their 

* Tablet, March 10, 1849. \ Wilmot's Life of Hough, p. 15. 

t Macaulay, vol. ii., p. 298. 



17 



sonal dignity, on the issue of the 
contest. Could he yield to sub- 
jects whom he had menaced with 
raised voice and furious gestures ? 
Yet could he venture to eject in 
one day a crowd of respectable 
clergymen from their homes be- 
cause they had discliarged what the 
whole nation regarded as a sacred 
duty ? Perhaps there might be an 
escape from this dilemma. Per- 
haps the College miglit still be ter- 
rified, caressed, or bribed into sub- 
mission. The agency of Penn was 
employed. He had too much good 
feeling to approve of the unjust and 
violent measures of the govern- 
ment, and even ventured to ex- 
press part of what he thought. 
James was, as usual, obstinate in 
the wronji." 



oaths. This account is confimjed 
by some original letters now in 
the Bodleian Library at Oxford, 
from Dr. Sykes and Mr. Creech to 
Dr. Charlett, of the Glh, 7th, and 
9th of September, 1G87, in which, 
after giving exactly the same ac- 
count of the King's reception and 
treatment of the fellows, they both 
state that Mr. Penn went after- 
wards to Magdalen College, and 
having had some conference with 
the fellows, wrote a letter to the 
King in their behalf, observing 
' that their case was hard ; that in 
their circumstances they could not 
yield without a breach of their 
oaths ; and that such mandates 
were a force upon conscience, and 
not agreeable to the King's other 
gracious indulgences.' " 



This interview of Penn with the fellows must have occurred 
between the 3d of September, the day of the King's arrival at 
Oxford, and the 9th of the same month, the date of the last of 
the letters referred to by Wilmot. Some time afterwards, on 
what exact day is not known, but probably about the end of the 
month, an anonymous letter was received by Dr. Thomas Bailey, 
one of the fellows, which he chose to attribute to Penn, to whom 
he sent a reply, on which two epistles Mr. Macaulay rests the 
following declamation, or at least must be supposed to rest it, all 
other authority being utterly wanting : — 

WILMOT.f 

" It was now rumoured that the 
King had issued an order to pro- 
ceed against the College by a writ 
of Quo Warranto, but however 
this was, the fellows appear to have 
listened to an application made 
to Dr. Thomas Bailey, one of the 
senior fellows, from William Penn, 
who was said to be in great favour 
at that time with the King, and 
had written to the Doctor" a let- 



MACAULAV.' 

" The courtly duaker therefore 
did his best to seduce the College. 
from the path of right. He first 
tried intimidation. Ruin he said 
impended over the society. The 
King was highly incensed. The 
case might be a hard one. Most 
people thought it so. But every 
child knew tliat his Majesty loved 
to have his own way, and could 
not bear to be thwarted. Penn, 



Macaulay, vol. ii., p. 298. 

2 



t Wilmot, p. 18. 



19 



llierefore, exhorted the fellows not 
to rely upon the goodness of their 
cause, but to submit, or at least 
to temporise. Such counsel came 
strangely from one who had him- 
self been expelled from the Uni- 
versity for raising a riot about the 
surplice, who had run the risk of 
being disinherited rather than take 
off his hat to the princes of the 
blood, and had been more than 
once sent to prison for preaching 
at conventicles. He did not suc- 
(;eed in frightening tlie Magdalen 
men. In answer to his alarming 
hints he was reminded that in the 
last generation thirty-four out of 
the forty fellows had cheerfully 
left their beloved cloisters and gard- 
ens, their hall and their chapel, and 
had gone forth, not knowing where 
they should find a meal or a bed, 
rather than violate the oath of al- 
legiance. The King now wished 
them to violate another oath. He 
should find that the old spirit was 
not extinct." 



ter, of which the followinfr is a 
copy : * 



"■A COPY OF A LETTER DIRECTED 
TO DR. BAYLEY, FELLOV*' OP 
MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXON, SUP- 
POSED TO EE WRIT BY MR. WIL- 
LIAM PENT*. 

" Sir, — Upon an inquiry made of 
your present fellows of Magdalen 
College, 1 am informed that you 
are a person eminent in that learn- 
ed body, for your temper, pru- 
dence, and good conduct in af- 
fairs, and therefore very fit to be 
addressed to by me, who do not 
send you this to trepan you and 
your brethren, but out of a pas- 
sionate concern for your interest ; 
to persuade you either to a com- 
pliance with his Majesty's letters 
mandatory, or to think among 
yourselves of some expedient to 
prevent the ruin of your College 
and yourselves ; and to offer it to 
his Majesty's royal consideration, 
that the order for the Quo War- 
ranto against the College may be 
recalled, before it be too late ; for 
you cannot but be sensible how 
highly his Majesty is incensed 
against you, neither can you give 
one instance whether ever that sort 
of proceeding was judged against 
the Crown. Your cause most 
tliink it very hard ; but you are 
not in prudence to rely on the 
goodness of your cause, but to do 
what the present instance of af- 
fairs will permit, and in patience to 
expect a season that will be more 
auspicious to persons of your cha- 
racter. Every mechanic knows 
the temper of his present Majesty, 
who never will receive a baffle in 
anything that he heartily espouseth; 



* Quotations only from this letter are given in Wilmot, but the reader will un- 
derstand it better if he read it all, and it is therefore given above in full, as printed 
iri the State Trials, vol. iv., p. 270. 



19 



and that he doth this, yourselves 
have had too late and manifest an 
instance to doubt of his zeal in the 
affair. 

" Where there are so many 
statutes to be observed, it is im- 
possible but some must be broken 
at one time or another ; and I am 
informed by the learned of the 
law, that a failure in any one point 
forfeits your grant, and lays your 
College open to the Royal dis- 
posal. 

" I could give many other pru- 
dent arguments that might pos- 
sibly incline you to a speedy en- 
deavour of putting an end to your 
troubles almost at any rate ; but I 
shall suggest this one thing to you, 
that your fatal overthrow would be 
a fair beginning of so much aimed 
at reformation, first of the Univer- 
sity, then of the Church, and ad- 
minister such an opportunity to 
the enemy as may perliaps not oc- 
cur in his IMajesty's reign. 

" Your affectionate servant, &c. 

" There was no signature to this 
letter, but, from what passed after- 
wards, there is every reason to be- 
lieve that it was written by William 
Penn, to whom it was ascribed. 

" Pr. Bailey returned a long and 
argumentative answer to this letter, 
on the 3d of October, directed to 
Mr. Penn, in which he says, ' The 
paper enclosed is a copy of a let- 
ter, which, by the charitable pur- 
pose of it, seems to be written by 
you, who have been already so 
kind as to appear in our behalf, 
and are reported by all who know 
you to employ much of your time 
in doing good to mankind, and 
using your credit with his Majesty 
to undeceive him in any wrong im- 
pressions given him of his con- 
scientious subjects, and, where his 
justice and goodness have been 
thereby abused, to reconcile the 



30 

persons injured to his Majesty's 
favour, and secure them by it from 
oppression and prejudice. In this 
confidence, I presume to make this 
application to you, desiring your 
excuse for not subscribing it ; for 
if you did write the letter, you 
know to whom it was directed ; 
and if you did not, I hope your 
charity will induce you to make 
such use of your light you have 
by it into the affairs of our Col- 
lege, as to mediate for us with his 
Majesty to be restored to his good 
opinion, as the only thing which 
is desired by us, who are zealous, 
above all earthly things, for his 
felicity and glory." 

What reply Penn sent to Bailey's letter, or whether he sent 

any, is not known, but very soon after this,* " viz., on the 9th of 

" October, a deputation from the College, of which Dr. Hough 

" was one, had a conference with Mr. Penn- at Windsor, where 

" the Court at that time was held," which is described by Dr. 

Hough in the following letter to a relation, a copy of which is 

among the MSS. of the British Museum, and paraphrased by Mr. 

Macaulay as follows : — 

MACAULAY.f wiLMOT.J (Hough's Letter.) 

. " Then Penn tried a gentler tone. ,, October the 9th at nwhf 

He had an interview with Hough ' ° 

and with some of the fellows, and, " Dear Cousin, — I gave you a 

after many professions of sym- short, account of what passed at 

pathy and friendship, began to hint Windsor this morning ; but having 

at a compromise. The King could the convenience of sending this by 

not bear to be crossed. The Col- Mr. Charlett, I fancy you will be 

lege must give way. Parker must well enough satisfied to hear our 

be admitted. But he was in very discourse with Mr. Penn more at 

bad health. As his preferments large. 

would soon be vacant, ' Doctor " He was in all about three hours 

Hough,' said Penn, ' may then be in our company, and at his first 

Bishop of Oxford. How should coming in, he began with the great 

you like that, gentlemen .?' Penn concern he had for the welfare of 

had passed his life in declaiming our College, the many efforffe he 

against a hireling ministry. He had made to reconcile us to the 

held that he was bound to refuse King, and the great sincerity of his 

the payment of tithes, and this intentions and actions ; that he 

* Wilmot, p. 22 t Macaulay, vol. ii., p. 299. t Wilmot, pp. 25 to 30. 



21 



even when he had bought land 
chargeable with tithes, and had 
been allowed the value of the 
tithes in the purchase money. 
According to his own principles, 
he would have committed a great 
sin if he had interfered for the pur- 
pose of obtaining a benefice on the 
most honourable terms for the 
most pious divine. Yet to such a 
degree had his manners been cor- 
rupted by evil communications, and 
his understanding obscured by in- 
ordinate zeal for a single object, 
that he did not scruple to become 
a broker in simony of a peculiarly 
discreditable kind, and to use a 
bishopric as a bait to tempt a di- 
vine to perjury. Hough replied 
with civil contempt that he wanted 
notiiing from the Crown but com- 
mon justice. ' We stand,' he said, 
' on our statutes and our oaths ; 
but, even setting aside our statutes 
and oaths, we feel that we have 
our religion to defend. The Pa- 
pists have robbed us of Christ 
Church. The fight is now for 
Magdalen. They will soon have 
all the rest.' 

" Penn was foolish enough to 
answer that he really believed that 
the Papists would now be content. 
' University,' he said, ' is a pleasant 
college. Christ Church is a noble 
place. Magdalen is a fine build- 
ing. The situation is convenient. 
The walks by the river are delight- 
ful. If the Roman Catholics are 
reasonable, they will be satisfied 
■with these.' This absurd avowal 
would alone have made it impossi- 
ble for Hough and his brethren to 
yield. The negotiation was bro- 
ken ofl^, and the King hastened to 
make the disobedient know, as he 
liad threatened, what it was to in- 
cur his displeasure." 



thought nothing in this world was 
worth a trick, or any thing suf 
ficient to justify collusion or de- 
ceitful artifice, and this he insisted 
so long upon, that I easily per- 
ceived he expected something of 
a compliment, by way of assent, 
should be returned •, and therefore, 
though I had much ado to bring it 
out, I told him that whatever others 
might conceive of him, he might 
be assured we depended upon his 
sincerity, otherwise we would 
never have given ourselves the 
trouble to come thither to meet 
him. 

" He then gave an historical ac- 
count, in short, of his acquaintancd* 
with the King; assured us it was 
not Popery but Property that first 
began it ; that however people 
were pleased to call him Papist, he 
declared to us that he was a dis- 
senting Protestant; that he dis- 
sented from Papists in almost all 
those points wherein we difier 
from them, and many wherein we 
and they are agreed. 

"After this we came to the Col- 
lege again. He wished with all 
his heart that he had sooner con- 
cerned himself in it, but he was 
afraid that he had now come too 
late ; however, he would use his 
endeavours, and if they were un- 
successful, we must refer it to 
want of power, not of good will, 
to serve us. I told him I thought 
the most effectual way would be 
to give his Majesty a true state of 
the case, which 1 had reason to 
suspect he had never yet received ; 
and therefore I offered him some 
papers for his instruction, whereof 
one was a copy of our first petition 
before the election, another was 
our letter to the Duke of Ormond 
and the state of our case ; a third 
M'as that petition which our society 
had offered to his 3Iajesty here at 



22 



Oxford ; and a fourth was that sent 
after the King to Bath. He seem- 
ed to read them very attentively, 
and after many objections, (to 
which he owned I gave him satis- 
factory answers,) he promised faith- 
fully to read every word to the 
King, unless he was peremptorily 
commanded to forbear. He was 
very solicitous to clear Lord Sun- 
derland of suspicion, and threw the 
odium upon the Chancellor, which 
I think I told you in tlie morning, 
and which makes me think there 
is little good tq be hoped for from 
him. 

" He said the measures now re- 
solved upon were such as the King 
thought would take effect ; but he 
said he knew nothing in particular, 
nor did he give the least light, 
or let fall any thing wherein we 
might so much as ground a con- 
jecture, nor did he so much as hint 
at the letter which was sent to 
him. 

" I thank God he did not so 
much as offer at any proposal by 
■way of accommodation, which was 
the thing I most dreaded; only 
once, upon the mention of the 
Bishop of Oxford's indisposition, 
he said, smiling, ' If the Bishop 
of Oxford die. Dr. Hough may be 
made Bishop. What think you 
of that, gentlemen ?' Mr. Cradock 
answered, '• they should be heartily 
glad of it, for it would do very 
well with the Presidentship.' But 
I told him seriously, I had no am- 
bition above the post in which I 
was, and that having never been 
conscious to myself of any dis- 
loyalty towards my Prince, I could 
not but wonder what it was should 
make me so much more incapable 
of serving his Majesty in it than 
those whom he had been pleased 
to recommend.' He said. Majesty 
did not love to be thwarted ; and 



fia 



after so long a dispute we could 
not expect to be restored to ilie 
King's favour without making 
some concessions.' 1 told lum, 
' that we were ready to make all 
that were consistent with honesly 
and conscience ;' but many things 
might have been said upoi) that 
subject, whicli I did not then think 
proper to mention. ' However,' 
said I, ' Mr. Penn, in this I will be 
plain with you. We have our 
statutes and oaths to justify us in 
all that we have done hitherto; 
but setting this aside, we have a 
religion to defend, and I suppose 
yourself would think us knaves if 
we should tamely give it up. The 
Papists have already gotten Christ 
Church and University ; the pre- 
sent struggle is for Magdalen ; and 
in a short time they threaten they 
will have the rest.' He replied 
with vehemence, ' That they shall 
never have, assure yourselves ; if 
once they proceed so far, they will 
quickly find themselves destitute 
of their present assistance. For 
my part, I have always declared 
my opinion that the preferments 
of the Church should not be put 
into any other hands but such as 
they at present are in; but I hope 
you would not have the two Uni- 
versities such invincible bulwarks 
for the Church ,of England, that 
none but they must be capable of 
giving their children a learned 
education. I suppose two or three 
colleges will content the Papists : 
Christ Church is a noble structure, 
University is a pleasant place, and 
Magdalen College is a comely 
building. The walks are pleasant, 
and it is conveniently situated just 
at the entrance of the town,' Stc. 
&c. When I heard him talk at 
this rate, I concluded he was either 
off his guard, or had a mind to 
droll upon us 'However,' I re- 



24 

plied, ' when they had ours, they 
would take the rest, as they and 
the present possessors could never 
agree.' Jn short, I see it is re- 
solved that the Papists must have 
our College ; and I think all we 
have to do, is, to let the world see 
that they take it from us, and that 
we do not give it up. 

" I count it great good fortune 
that so many were present at this 
discourse (whereof 1 have not told 
you a sixth part, but I think the 
most considerable) ; for otherwise 
I doubt this last passage would 
have been suspected as if to 
heighten their courage through de- 
spair. But there was not a word 
said in private, Mr. Hanmiond, Mr. 
Hunt, Mr. Cradock, and Mr. Young, 
being present all the lime. 

"Give my most humble service 
to Sir Thomas Powell and Mrs. 
Powell. 

" I am, dear Sir, 
" Tour very affectionate and 

*•' faithful Servant, 

"J. H." 

With this interview ended, so far as history informs us, Penn's 
interference. 

The disagreement between the two narratives above quoted is 
almost too evident to need remark, but it may be worth while to 
recapitulate Mr. Macaulay's perversions and omissions. 

First, as regards Penn's earliest sliare in the business, viz., his 
conference with the fellows at Oxford, Mr. Macaulay says, 
" Penn's agency was employed." None of Wilmot's authorities, 
neither Anthony a Wood, nor Sykes'*and Creech's letters, men- 
tion any employment ; they merely state that, after the King had 
met the fellows, Penn went to Magdalen College, but whether at 
the instigation of the Court or of his own feelings tliey do not 
add. His object may, as has been well stated, have been " either 
" to save the King from liis dilemma or the College from its 
" peril."* The imputation of either motive is an assumption, 

* Tablet, March 10th, 1849. 



25 

Dut Mr. Macaulay's positive assertion that he was employed is 
certainly unwarranted. 

But Mr. Macaulay assumes much more than the fact of 
agency ; he asserts not only that Penn was employed, but em- 
ployed in order to " terrify, caress, or bribe the College into sub- 
" mission." If this was the task imposed on him, he certainly 
did not fulfil it, nor even attempt to fulfil it, for though, says Wil- 
mot, " he at first hoped to persuade the fellows to comply with 
"the King's wishes, yet, when he heard the statement of the 
" case," tiiat is, when he ascertained the true tacts, " he was satis- 
" fied that they could not comply without a breach of their oaths, 
" and wrote a letter to the King on their behalf." 

Again, when Mr. Macaulay says that Penn, having " too much 
■'good feeling to approve of the violent and unjust proceedings 
" of the government" (wonderful admission !) " even ventured to 
" express part of what he thought," it would have been well to 
have stated what part of his thoughts he can have concealed. 
The fellows allege their oath as their excuse for disobedience, 
this excuse they represent to Penn, who boldly and plainly repeats 
it to the King. " Their case," he says, " was hard," " they could 
"not yield obedience without a breach of their oaths," "such 
" mandates were a force on conscience." " What more could 
" he or any one have said ?" and what other of James's courtiers, 
who vied in his desertion and in fawning on his successor, when 
the "courtly Quaker" had courage to declare that the fallen 
monarch " had been his friend and his father's friend,"* would 
have dared to say as much?' 

Next, as to the letter addressed to Bailey, and attributed to 
Penn : in the first place, there is no proof, or rather no proba- 
bility, that this letter was his writing. It bears no signature, he 
never acknowledged any share in it, it is not alluded to as his by 
Hough in his account of the Windsor conference, and though 
Wilmot seems to suppose he never denied it, there is good reason 
to believe he did, inasmuch as the cotemporary copy of the pro- 
ceedings in this case, preserved in the archives of Magdalen Col- 
lege, bears on the margin of this letter a manuscript memoran- 
dum, "Mr. Penn disowned this." Moreover, its very wording, 

* Pcnn's SpeccJi before tlic Lords of the Council, 1G88 : Life prefixed to Works, 
p. 139. 



26 

the terms " Sir and Majesty," are contrary to his notorious scru* 
pies and style of writing. Mr. Macaulay does indeed state, 
cither on the authority of this anonymous epistle, or his own ima- 
gination, that " titles and phrases against which he had borne his 
" testimony dropped occasionally from his lips and his pen ;" and 
possibly the fact that such phrases were inconsistent with his pro- 
fession, and therefore with his sincerity, may be in Mr. Macau- 
lay's mind reason why he should ascribe them to Penn ; but as no 
other occasion is recorded in which they fell from him, and as 
no motive can be imagined for him to have thus belied the scru- 
ples of a life, for which he had so often suffered (nor indeed for 
him to conceal his name at all,) their use in this case would 
appear to be strong internal evidence against his authorship. 

But even supposing that it is fair to charge him with the con- 
tents of this document, which plainly it is not, they by no means 
justify Mr. Macaulay's insinuations of " intimidation," attempts 
to " seduce the College from the path of right," to " frighten the 
" Magdalen men," &c. 

So far from the letter having given such ideas to Dr. Bailey, 
he grounds his guess that it was Penn's on " its charitable pur- 
" pose" making it " seem to have been written by one who had 
" been already so kind as to appear on their behalf," and was 
" reported by all who knew him to employ much of his time in 
" doing good to mankind, and using his credit with his Majesty 
" to undeceive him in any wrong impression." 

It is a pity Mr. Macaulay has not quoted this reply of Bailey : 
his readers could then have judged how far the impression he 
gives of Penn's conduct was that felt by the parties most inte- 
rested. 

Lastly, comes the final interview at Windsor, in Mr. Macau- 
lay's account of which the incorrect notion given by his disre- 
gard of time and place is plain enough. 

Any one of his readers would suppose that this interview was 
sought by Penn in performance of his office of seduction. " He 
" did not succeed in frightening the Magdalen men," so he " tried 
" a gentler tone," and accordingly " had an interview with 
/'Hough," &c., and "began to hint at a compromise." Who 
would imagine, after reading such sentences as these, that this 
conference took place, not at the College, but at Windsor, a depu- 



27 

tation of the fellows going forty miles to see the Quaker, more 

than a month after the interview at Oxford, and six days after 

the date of Bailey's letter, in consequence of whose entreaty for 

his intercession it was probably held ? 

Nor are the distortions by Mr. Macaulay of Bishop Hou^^h's 

report of this interview less evident.* 

" Mr. Macaulay represents Penn as employed to solicit the 

« fellows ; Dr. Hough represents the fellows as coming to solicit 

"him. 

" Mr. Macaulay says that, after many professions of friendship, 

"Penn 'began to hint at a compromise;' Dr. Hough 'thanks. 

" God he did not so much as offer at any proposal by way of 

" accommodation, which was the thing I most dreaded.' 

"Mr. Macaulay makes his readers believe that the topics 
" urged by Penn were urged to persuade them to compromise ; 
" Dr. Hough describes them as used to convince the fellows that 
" there was little hope of success from his intercession. 

"Mr. Macaulay represents Penn as trying to overcome the 
" scruples of the fellows to the commission of perjury; Dr. Ploun-h 
"represents him as admitting that the fellows gave satisfactory 
" answers to his ' objections.' 

" Mr. Macaulay represents Penn as talking the merest drivel, 
" relying solely on James's moderation, and willing to give the 
"' Papists' two or three colleges in mere wanton injustice; Dr. 
" Hough (most unwillingly) shows that Penn thought the ' Papists' 
" had a right to two or three colleges, and believed they would 
" abstain from further demands because it would be dangerous 
" to ask for more. 

" Mr. Macaulay describes the result of the interview as the 
' ' breaking off of a negotiation' by the fellows ; Dr. Hough de- 
" scribes it as the concession of a favour by Penn. 

" In short, in every part of it, in general and in detail, no ver- 
" sion of the interview could be imagined or invented more re- 
" mote from the truth than that given by Mr. Macaulay. It is 
" true that when somebody mentioned the Bishop of Oxford's in- 
" disposition, Penn ' smiling' asked the fellows how they would 
■ ] # 

* These differences between the two writers are so clearly given in the critic 
previously alluded to (Tablet, March 10th, 1849,) Uiat they hardly admit of alter- 
ation, and are therefore quoted at length in the text. 



28 

"like Hough to be made a Bishop. This remark, male as vl 
" joke, answered by Mr. Cradock as a joke, and — even by Dr. 
" Hough, who answered it more seriously, not taken as an * offer 
" at any proposal by way of accommodation' — this casual piece 
"of jocosity; picked out of a three hours' conversation; reported 
" by one interlocutor without the privity of the other ; and, if 
" taken seriously, at variance with every other part of the con- 
" versation, and unconnected with its general tenor, is gravely 
" brought forward as a proof that a man otherwise honest, deli- 
" berately intended to use * simony' as a bait to tempt a divine to 
" what both parties knew to be ' perjury.' 

"If Mr. Macaulay were Crown counsel arguing for Penn's 
"conviction before a common jury, such a 'point' would be too 
" gross even for the license of the Old Bailey. But if this be 
" admitted as a canon, not of the venal advocate, but of the grave 
" historian, who, by virtue of his function, is bound to judicial 
" soberness and impartiaHty, God help the characters of all honest 
" men." 

Before leaving this case, it may be well to quote Sewell's no- 
tice of it in his " History of the Quakers," in order that the reader 
may observe how completely Wilmot's account is confirmed, and 
Mr. Macaulay's contradicted, by an entirely independent narra- 
tor, who was, as Clarkson says, " then in correspondence with 
" Penn, knowing almost every thing relating to bin? as it hap- 
" pened, and who must have obtained his information from 
" sources quite distinct from VVilmot, none of the documents 
" quoted by the latter having been published till after his death." 

" The King having thus granted liberty 'of conscience to people 
" of all persuasions," says Sewell,* " did whatever he could to 
" introduce Popery in England, for he permitted the Jesuits to 
" erect a College in the Savoy at London, and suffered the fryars 
"to go publickly in the dress of their monastical orders. .This 
" was a very strange sight to Protestants in England, and it 
"caused no small fermentation in the minds of people, when the 
" fellows at Magdalen College, at Oxford, were by the King's 
" order dispossessed, to make way for Romanists. This was 
" such a gross usurpation, that W. Penn, who had ready access 
" to the King, and who endeavoured to get the penal laws and 

» Sewell, p. 609. 



29 

" test abrogated, thinking it possible to find out a way, wiiereby 
" to limit the Papists so eflectually that they should not be able 
" to prevail, did, for all that, not omit to blame this usurpation at 
" Oxford, and to tell the King, that it was an act which could 
" not in justice be defended ; since the general liberty of con- 
" science did not allow of depriving any of their property, who 
" did what they ought to do, as the fellows of the said College 
" appeared to have done." 

Objection might possibly be made to this testimony of Sewell, 
if taken by itseif, though hardly with reason, inasmuch as his 
reputation for honesty as a historian is unquestioned, and his feel- 
ing as a Dutchman and a Protestant, in favour of William and 
his policy, and in opposition to James (abundantly shown in his 
work,) was such as would counteract any bias to which his 
Quakerism and friendship for Penn might expose him ; but cer- 
tainly, as corroborative evidence, such testimony is as indisput- 
able as strong. 

Surely, then, an examination into the true facts of this Oxford 
business makes it not unjust to Mr. Macaulay to assert, that his 
charges against Penn of " intimidation," of being a " broker in 
"simony of a peculiarly discreditable kind," of endeavours "to 
" tempt a divine to perjury," to " terrify or bribe" men to forsake 
" the path of right," are all groundless ; that his statement, that 
even in the first instance he was employed by the Court, is un- 
proved ; and that the impression given, that he was its agent in 
the last and most important interview, is the very reverse of the 
truth, the requests for his intercession, which his reputation for 
"doing good to mankind," and honest struggles to "undeceive" 
the King, induced such men as Bailey to make to him, being 
construed, as in the case of Kiffin, into attempts on his part to 
seduce and eflbrts to frighten. 

It would be hard to find any other history in which the very 
virtues of a man are thus twisted into grounds for the most inju- 
rious attacks upon his character. 

But however unwarranted these attacks, this much must be 
allowed, that the tone of Hough's letter does give ground to be- 
lieve that he regarded Penn with some suspicion, as a supposed 
supporter of the King's general policy, and possible participator 
in his designs against the interests of the Protestant Church. It 



30 

remains, therefore, to be considered how far this suspicion, which 
indeed forms the sole excuse for Mr. Macaulay's strictures, was 
justified — on what facts it was grounded, and whether these facts 
were in themselves discreditable or not. In order to reply to 
these questions, a few remarks respecting Penn's connection with 
the Court, and its cause, will be needed. 

When James came to the throne, there were in the prisons of 
his kingdom about 1400* Quakers, more than 200 of them wo- 
men, unoffending people, forced by the very tenets of that faith 
for which they suffered to be loyal subjects and peaceable citi- 
zens, whose sole alleged crime was their obedience to the voice 
of conscience. For this obedience, from the time they had first 
gathered together as a sect, each religious party, as it gained 
political sway, had measured its power by their persecution. As 
Penn said, when stating their wrongs to the Parliament of 1679, 
they had been as the " common whipping-stock of the kingdom : 
*' all laws had been let loose upon them, as if the design had been, 
" not to reform, but to destroy them." 

George Fox, their founder and leader, would have been quali- 
fied to draw up a report of the state of the gaols of the island, 
so universal and experimental was his acquaintance with them, 
and a sad list it would have shown of noisome holes and stifling 
dungeons, for those were days in which Prison Reform had been 
in truth but little agitated. More than 320t Quakers had died in ■ 
, confinement between 1660 and James's accession; at that very 
time many "were tending towards their destruction;" and very 
shortly before " several poor innocent tradesmen had been so suf- 
" focated by the closeness of Newgate, that they had been taken 
" out sick of a malignant fever, and had died in a few days."| 
Nor were their sufferings restricted to imprisonment : their meet- 
ings for worship were dispersed, their wives and daughters ill- 
treated, their goods spoiled, often " not a bed left to rest upon ;" 
informers — hardened wretches, their own consciences long seared 
by sin — were set upon them, encouraged to turn their consciences 
to profit, to make merchandise of their misery. These blood- 
hounds of the law were the missionaries — sanguinary enactments 

* Petition of Quakers to Parliament, 1685; Seweli, p. 588; and Petition to tlie 
Kin^, id. p. 592. 

t Petition, Scwell, p. 558. " i Croese, p. 101. 



31 

were the arguments einployed in the conversion of the Quaker 
ahke by cavalier parson and puritan preacher. 

Few persecutions, indeed, have been more cruel or severe than 
that endured by the first generation of the " Friends," and in none 
have the patience and faithfulness of its victims been exceeded. 
History records no instance in which they, any one of them, 
denied or concealed their principles, or attempted to retaliate on 
their oppressors. Thus long and fiercely had the storm of bigotry 
raged against Penn's fellow-religionists, nor had he himself fled 
from its fury. Bravely had he borne up against it. Four times 
he had been imprisoned, twice sent to the tower ; once at the in- 
stigation of the Bishop of London, he had, for writing a book in 
defence of his faith, been immured there in close confinement, 
none of his friends being allowed access to him : his father, the 
old Admiral, whose distaste to enthusiasm was almost equal to 
Mr. Macaulay's, managed to inform him " that the Bishop was 
"resolved he should either publicly recant or die a prisoner." 
" Tell my father," he replied, " that my prison shall be my grave 
" before I will budge a jot, for I owe my conscience to no mor- 
" tal man. I have no need to fear. God will make amends for 
« all !"* 

Once, indeed, he did succeed in defeating the malice of his 
foes, when, after having been kept untried some months in New- 
gate, he was brought to the bar of the Old Bailey, and, thanks 
to his owi~ ability and courage, w^as acquitted. That famous 
trial would alone explain the fact, which is so puzzling to Mr. 
Macaulay, the honour paid to his name by posterity, for it is hard 
to say how much of our present religious freedom is not due to 
a defence which so ably proved that the rights of conscience are 
inseparable from the civil liberties of a British citizen.f 

But at length there was a ray of hope for this despised and 
persecuted people. The justice and *mercy, which had been denied 

• Life prefixed to Works, p. 6. 

+ See "The People's Ancient and Just Liberties asserted in tlie trial of William 
Penn and William Mead, at the Old Bailey, September, 1G70." — Works, vol. i. p. 
'''• — This trial, in fact, gave occasion to proceeding's against Bushel, the foreman 
rif the jury, in which Lord Chief Justice Vaughan pronounced his noble vindication 
of the right of jurors to deliver a free verdict, which by giving independence lij 
jiu-ics, made the institution so effectual a protection to tlie liberty of the subject — 
See BushcVs Case, Vaughan's Reports, p. 135. 



32 

to them, -when demanded on public grounds, they had some reasons 
to look for as boons to private friendship, " for between the new 
" Sovereign and Penn there had long been a familiar acqu.'iint- 
" ance."* The Admiral had, on his death-bed, besought the Duke 
of York to protect his son, and James had honestly fulfilled his 
promise to a beloved and faithful servant, and indeed had already 
shown his good will by procuring Penn's liberation from the 
Tower, t 

The Quakers had therefore a friend at court, if he chose to use 
his influence, and most culpable would he have been if he had 
neglected to do so, seeing how much and for what purpose it was 
needed. Hence it was that he " became a courtier,"| and, so 
great was the affection and esteem of his Sovereign, " almost a 
" favourite. He was every day summoned from the gallery into 
" the closet, and sometimes had long audiences, while peers were 
" kep^ waiting in the ante-chambers. It was noised abroad that 
" he had more real power to help and hurt than many nobles who 
" filled high offices. He w^as soon surrounded by flatterers and 
" suppliants. His house at Kensington M^as sometimes thronged, 
" at his hour of rising, by more than 200 suitors." Mr. Macau- 
lay quotes in his margin the passage in Croese's " Historia Qua- 
" keriania" describing these levees, but not explaining their cause. 
"When the carrying on these affairs required expenses at Court 
" for writings and drawing out of things into acts, copyings, fees, 
" and other moneys which are due, or at least are usually paid, 
" Penn," says Croese, " so discreetly managed matters, that out 
" of his own, which he had in abundance, he liberally discharged 
" all emergent expenses."§ No wonder that a courtier, who, in 
those days of universal and unblushing corruption, not only did 
not sell his influence, but actually paid out of his own pocket the 
expenses of his petitioners, had them rush in crowds to his gates. 

* Macaulay, vol. i. p. 506s * + Penn's Letter to Popple. 

t Macaulay, vol. i. p. 506. 

§ Croese, Cotcmporary English Translation, book ii. p. 107. The Latin is as 
follows : — " At qui hie, cum inagni in his ncgotiis sumptus essent facicndi, in aula, 
in curiis, pro scripturis, pro rclationibus in acta, ex iisque repctitionibus, pro oera- 
riis, pro ctEteris pecuniis, quae sic debent, et ctsi non debent, tamcn solcnt solvi. 
Pennus haec omnia ita tractabat, ut quemadmodum eifacultates abunde suppetebant, 
iia liberaliter ad omnia hac sumpius faceret." — Gerardi, Croesi, Historia Quakeriana, 
lib. ii. p. 370. 



33 

This passage, which Mr. Macaulay does not quote, immediately 
follows one which he does, but, as it is scarcely rcconcileable 
with the estimate his after remarks show him to have formed of 
Penn's conduct, it is not surprising that he makes no mention 
of it. 

"The first use,"* however, "which he made of his credit" — 
his successful efforts to procure the liberation of the MOO captive 
Quakers, he allows " to have been highly commendable." But 
this success did not and indeed could not satisfy him: his friends 
were pardoned by the King's mercy, but there was no security 
that the unjust laws which had imprisoned them would not be 
again enforced. Nor was it for the relief of his own persuasion 
alone that he laboured for the repeal of the penal laws, but in 
order to ensure to all his fellow-countrymen, permission to wor- 
ship their God as they pleased. The fact is, he was an nthu- 
siast in the cause of religious liberty: it was a cause for which, 
ever since he had arrived at manhood, he had been talking, 
writing, suffering. 

" Freedom in things relating to conscience,"! was his petition 
to the Earl of Orrery, in his earliest letter on record, written in 
his twenty-third year ; and three years aftei*, when " a prisoner 
" for conscience sake in Newgate," he wrote his " Great Case of 
*' Liberty of Conscience," claiming it as " the undoubted right" 
of all, " by the law of God, of nature, and of our own country."! 

These w^ere -rare notions in those days, when the virtue of 
bigotry was preached and practised alike by Independent, Pres- 
byterian, and Episcopalian ; when liberty to serve God their own 
way, and to force others to do the same, were the aims of each 
of the three great divisions of British Protestants. Especially 
did they all three agree in a firm belief in their duty to persecute 
the Papists. Catholics and Quakers, professing as it were the 
two extremes of Christianity, often met in the dungeon, and thus, 
it was that, in 1G78, when Churchmen and Dissenters forgot their 
mutual hatred in their frenzied fear of the Popish plot, they could 
yet spare some cruelty for the poor " Friends." The memory of 
the Marian persecution gives some ground, if not excuse, for 
their hatred of the Romanists, but why they should include the 

* Macaulay, vol. i. p. 508. t Life prei^ed to Works, p. 3. 

t Penn's, vol. i. p. 443. 

3 



S4 

Quakers in their wrath it is hard to determine, unless indeed their 
avowed respect for the conscience even of a Papist was so un- 
accountable, that it could only be ascribed to a concealed adher- 
ence to his faith. 

Hence possibly the reason that many of them, and Penn espe- 
cially, were often called Papists — Jesuits in disguise. Neverthe- 
less, spite of this prejudiae, and at the very height of the anti- 
Popery fury, he yet, when protesting before a Committee of Par- 
liament against the " injustice of whipping Quakers for Papists,"* 
ventured to add that he did not " think it fit that even Papists 
" should be whipt for their consciences, for such arguments," he 
said, " did not seem to him to be convincing, or indeed adequate 
" to the reason of mankind." Such words as these seem to us 
simple truisms, but those who have read Mr. Macaulay's vivid 
description of the Reign of Terror, resulting from the professed 
disclosures of the Popish Plot, will feel that only a man who 
feared God, and no one else, would have dared to speak them 
before the Parliament of 1678. 

So then Penn might well say, in his letter to Popple,! " that 
" liberty of conscience is the first step to have a religion. This 
" is no new opinion with me. I have writ many apologies within 
" the last twenty years to defend it ;" but he adds, as though an- 
ticipating the publication of Mr. Macaulay's History, yet " did I 
" never once think of promoting any sort of liberty of conscience 
" for any body which did not preserve the common Protestancy 
" of the kingdom and the ancient rights of the government ; for 
" to say truth, the one cannot be maintained without the other." 

This sentence recalls us to the question at issue. Did " his 
" enthusiasm for one great principle" in reality " impel him to 
" violate other great principles which he ought to have held sa- 
" cred V'l Did he, in his zeal for liberty of conscience, forget the 
liberties of the subject, or try to undermine the Protestant religion ? 

Fairly to consider this question, we must put ourselves in his 
position, and view the circumstances around him, not by the 
light which after events have cast upon them, but by that with 
which we should have seen them from his point of view. 

His position was in truth a peculiar one. The faith in which 

* Life prefixed to Works, vol. i. p. 118. 

t Works, vol. i. p. 13G. This letter was written October 24th, 1688. 

t Macaulay, vol. i. p. 507. 



the King was a sincere, though a superstitious believer, was a 
persecuted religion ; to repeal, therefore, those penal laws, which, 
in punishing all want of confornnity with the established Church, 
pressed so heavily on the Papists, became the object of his reign. 
The interests of his religion compelled him to appear at least to 
believe in the great principle of religious freedom : whether he 
did so in truth is certainly questionable. IMr. Macaulay takes 
gceat pains to show that he did not, that throughout he was at 
heart a bigot, wanting the power not the will to rekindle the fires 
of Smithfield. James's general character certainly does not dis- 
prove this charge, nor again, on the other side, do the facts of 
history prove it, for the persecutions of the Dissenters during the 
early part of his reign might have arisen not so much from reli- 
gious as political hatred to the party which had sent his father 
to the scaffold and himself into exile, and was even then in actual 
rebellion or undisguised opposition against his prerogative. Pro- 
bably his exact motives will never be ascertained, nor is it of 
importance that they should be ; enough for our purpose, that 
Penn had good reason for giving faith to his professions, for, so 
far as his own experience went, he had proved their sincerity. 
"Whatever practices of Roman Catholics we might," he says, in 
his letter to Popple, " reasonably object against, and no doubt but 
•' such there are, j^et he (the King) has disclaimed and repre- 
'" bended these ill things by his declared opinion against persecu- 
" tion, by the ease in which he actually indulges all Dissenters, 
" and by the confirmation he offers in Parliament for the security 
"of the Protestant religion and liberty of conscience. And in 
" his honour, as well as in my own defence, I am obliged in con- 
" science to say that he has ever declared to me, it was his opi- 
" nion, and on all occasions when Duke, he never refused me the 
" repeated proofs of it, as often as I had any poor sufferer for 
" conscience sake to solicit his help for." 

But even had Penn doubted the King's word, which plainly he 
had no reason .to do, he would have acted very foolishly not to 
have turned it to advantage, for his cause wanted all the help it 
could gain. By an accident, as it were, the ruling party was for 
him, but its tenure of power was uncertain, depending solely on 
the King's rule, and against him were combined the two great 
parties, between whom had hitherto alternated all political sway. 
The High Church Tory supported the penal laws, because he 



36 

thought it his duty to persecute- both Papist and Puritan ; the 
Puritan Whig wished indeed to repeal them for his own sect, but 
to continue them for the Catholic, for though now under oppres- 
sion himself, the traditions of Quakers imprisoned during the 
Commonwealth, and still later of Catholics hunted to death at the 
cry of Gates and his pack of informers, were memories too plea- 
sant to induce him to forego all hope of oppressing others. What, 
then, was the course for a man to take, who, like Penn, was 
anxious to secure to all his fellow-subjects the freedom which he 
claimed for himself? He could join neither of the parties in op- 
position ; he knew them both too well ; he himself owed a close 
confinement in the tower to a bishop, and not ten years before 
he had been forced to protest against laws made " by the Whig 
" Parliament" against Papists, but unjustly turned against his 
friends,* at which time also he would remember that the Puritans 
in New England had proved what he might expect from puritan 
rule, for "persecution," says Sewell, "being then (1677) hot in 
" Old England, it made those in New England the worse, inso- 
" much that they did not only whip the Quakers that were there, 
" but also some masters of ships that were no Quakers, only for 
" bringing some of that persuasion thither."f Plainly, then, his^ 
part was to do precisely what he did do, namely, first to support 
the King in his efforts to give present freedom of opinion, and 
then to do his utmost to secure this freedom for the future, by 
basing it not upon the caprice or life of the sovereign, but the 
firm foundation of a law secured by the concurrence of the peo- 
ple, expressed by Parliament. To gain this concurrence he 
struggled hard, by appealing to the common sense of the nation, 
and to the true interests of all parties, for doing which he reaped 
the unfailing reward of interference with prejudice, abuse from 
them all; but, though accused often enough by an "undiscerning 
" multitude of being a papist, nay, a jesuit,"| and suspected even 
by such men as Hough of a wish to subvert the Protestant 
Church, the one charge was as true as the othet, and his assail- 
ants may be defied to produce evidence that he either advised or 
supported any attack by the King on the religion or rights or 
property of his subjects. 

* Life prefixed to Works, vol. i. p. 117. t Sewell, p. 567. 

t Macaulay, vol. i. p. 506. 



37 

So far from desiring to supplant Protestant by Papal supre- . 
macy, his writings abundantly prove that he always felt and ad- 
vocated the necessity of providing against the possibility of such 
change. 

In a pamphlet* he published in 1679, he dwelt much on the 
distinction which their obedience to the foreign power of the 
Pope made between the Catholic and the Protestant Dissenter, 
and in 1687, during the heat of the ferment caused by the Royal 
measures, in his " Good Advice to the Church of England, 
" Roman Catholic, and Protestant Dissenter, in which it is 
" endeavoured to be made appear that it is their Duty, Principle, 
" and Interest, to abolish the Penal Laws and Tests,"! he de- 
clares positively that " a toleration, and no more, is that which 
"all Romanists ought to be satisfied with."| In fact, every word 
in his writings confirms the statement in Hough's letter, that 
though he was in advance of his age even so far as to conceive 
that the members of the Church of England should not alone be 
" capable of giving their children a learned education," yet he 
" always declared his opinion that the preferments of the Church 
" should not be put into any other hands but such as they at pre- 
" sent are in." Sewell's testimony to the same effect has already 
been quoted ; viz., that though he " endeavoured to get the Penal 
" Laws and Test abrogated," he yet thought " it possible to find 
"out a way whereby to limit the Papists so effectually that they 
" should not be able to prevail."§ 

Nor even in that most difficult question of the Declaration of 
Indulgence can Penn's conduct fairly be blamed. That famous 
act, the persistance in which was the immediate cause of James's 
loss of his crown, may be designated as an attempt to attain a 
good end by bad means. The penal laws were a disgrace to 
the Statute-book, and a grievous oppression to many of his sub- 
jects. James suspended them, but without the consent of his 
Parliament, by a simple exertion of his prerogative. Liberty of 
conscience, therefore, was obtained by an unconstitutional en- 
croachment on the liberty of the subject. It was received by 
the members of the Church, both lay and clerical, with universal 
terror and indignation ; the Dissenters were divided as to its 
reception ; some feared and suspected the giver too much to 

» Project for the good of England. Works, vol. i., pp. 682 to 691. 

t Works, vol. ii., p. 749. \ Idem, vol. ii., p. 768. § Idem, p. 606. 



38 

thank him for his boon, which others hailed, regardless of the 
motive which might have induced him to offer it. Penn was 
amontT the grateful ones. " Our sufferings," he said, in present- 
ing- the Quakers' address, " would have moved stones to compas- 
" sion, so we should be harder if we were not moved to grati- 
" tude."* For feeling and expressing this gratitude he incurs the 
reproach of Mr. Macaulay, but a little consideration will show 
how strange it would have been if he had acted otherwise. Mr. 
Macaulay himself acknowledges that when the King thus tried 
to bribe the Nonconformists to aid him, the Church suddenly 
became tolerant, and sought to outbid him,t offering them legal 
toleration, a Parliamentary indulgence, provided they would help 
to maintain the enactments against the Catholics. To many of 
the Dissenters the offer of the Church was the most tempting ; 
their hatred to Rome, their suspicion of the King's sincerity, 
their distrust of his power, all induced them to accept it; but 
very different motives would influence Penn : his earnest desire 
was not to persecute but to tolerate the Papist ; he had, as has 
been stated above, no ground to suspect the King, but he had 
good ground to fear the Church, for he had suffered from its 
power, and to suspect its offer, for he could not be sure that his 
friends would benefit by it. Cavaliers and Roundheads, Whig 
and Tory Parliaments, had each proved their hostility to the 
Quakers, how then could he trust that an act passed by an union 
between Whigs and Tories would not exclude his clients from 
relief? Can we tlien wonder that, to so uncertain a future hope, 
he preferred a certain present gain ? 

Surely, if Mr. Macaulay had recalled to his memory the vast 
difference which the Puritan persecution of the Quakers made, 
as he had himself previously shown, J between their position and 
that of the other Dissenters, he would not, in order to explain 
Penn's support of a measure which gave his friends the justice 
they could expect no where else, be compelled to imagine that 
" the life which he had been leading during two years had not a 
" little impaired his moral sensibility."§ 

Seeing, therefore, what was his experience of the mercy and 
justice of Parliaments — the laws which had been passed in the 
last reign, and that eve n during this, the petition to Parliament 

* Scwell, p. 609. t Macaulay, vol. ii., pp. 219 to 222. 

i Macaulay, vol. i., p. 503. § Macaulay, vol. iL, p. 224. 



99 

for his captive brethren had been of no avail, while that to the 
King had resulted in their freedom, "his conscience" could 
scarcely have " reproached him"* if he had supported his Sove- 
reign in his defence of the constitution, for what to him was a 
constitution which punished him for worshippinf^ his God? 

But even this he did not do : he not only did not uphold the 
King in any attempt to rule without the aid of Parliament, but, 
on the contrary, he throughout advised him against such a course. 
This fact is not alluded to by Mr. Macaulay, though twice stated 
by Sir James Mackintosh, to whose authority he generally pays 
the attention it deserves. " Penn," says Mackintosh,! quoting 
Johnstone's correspondence of 6th February, 1G88, " desired a 
" Parliament, as the only mode of establishing toleration without 
"subverting the laws." Again he says, that after the second 
proclamation of the Declaration of Indulgence, (April, 1688,) he 
" desired a Parliament, from a hope that, if the convocation were 
" not too long delayed, it might produce a compromise, in which 
" the King might, for the time, be contented with an universal 
"toleration of worship."J The wording of the address he pre- 
sented of the yearly meeting of Quakers confirms this view, in- 
asmuch as, while thanking the King for his "Christian Declara- 
"tionfor Liberty of Conscience," "it looks forward to such a 
* concurrence from Parliament as may secure it to their pos- 
'' terity in after times."§ " 'Tis plain, therefore," says Besse, in 

* Macaulay, vol. ii., p. 224. t Mackintosh, p. 219. J Idem, p. 241. 

§ Life prefixed to Works, vol. i., p. 130. As this address is probably onfi of those 
which Mr. M. alludes to as "fulsomely servile," (vol. ii., p. 225,) it is here given, 
in order tliat the reader may judge how far this epithet is applicable. 

The Address. 

To King James the Second over England, (fcc. 

The Humble and Grateful Acknowledgment of His Peaceable Subjects called 

Quakers, in this Kingdom. 
From their usual Yearly Meeting in London, tlie Nineteenth Day of the Third 
Month, vulgarly called May, 1687. 
>Ve cannot but bless and praise the name of Almighty God, who liath the hearts 
of princes in his hand, that he hath inclined the King to hear tlie cries of his suf- 
fering subjects for conscience sake : And we rejoice Uiat instead of troubling him 
with complaints of our sufferings, he hath given us so eminent an occasion to pre- 
sent him with our thanks : And since it hath pleased the King, out of his great 
compassion, thus to commiserate our afflicted condition, which hath so particularly 
appeared by his gracious proclamation and warrants last year, whereby twelve 
hundred prisoners were released from their severe imprisonments, and many otliers 
from spoil and ruin in their estates and properties ; and his princely speech in 



40 

Iiis Life, prefixed to Penn's Works, " they, the Quakers, grate- 
" fully accepted of the suspension of the penal laws by the King's 
" prerotrative. (as who in their case would not 1) a thing in itself 
"just and reasonable, in hopes of having the same afterwards con- 
" firmed by the legislative authority, there being at that time 
" much talk of an approaching Parliament, and that their expec- 
" tation centred not in the King's dispensing power is evident by 
" our author's continuing his endeavours to show the necessity of 
" abolishing the penal laws, for soon after this he writ a large 
" tract, called ' Good Advice to the Church of England,' " &c.* 

One word more about this Declaration of Indulgence: Mr. 
Macaulay says Penn tried to gain William's assent to it, " sent 
" copious disquisitions to the Hague, and even went there, in the 
" hope that his eloquence, of which he had a high opinion, would 
" prove irresistible."t All this is gratuitous assumption, for which 
indeed the author quotes Burnet, but had he read him, he would 
see that Penn's argument with the Prince| was about the aboli- 
tion of the Test, and that the Declaration of Indulgence was not 
then named, nor is it mentioned till several pages afterwards,^ 
and had he condescended to glance at Clarkson's Life, he would 
have learnt that this journey to the Continent, which, by the way, 
was a religious mission to both Holland and Germany, was 
during the year 1686, while the Declaration, it is well known, 
was not in existence till April, 1687. Had he also observed the 

council, and Christian declaration for liberty of eonseience, in which he doth not 
only express his aversion to all force upon conscience, and grant all his dissenting 
subjects an ample liberty to worship God, in the way they are persuaded is most 
agreeable to his will, but gives them his Kingly word the same shall continue 
during his reign ; we do (as our friends of this city have aheady done) render the 
King our humble, Christian, and thankful acknowledgments, not only in behalf of 
ourselves, but with respect to our friends throughout England and Wales. And 
pray God with all our hearts to bless and preserve thee, O King, and those under 
thee, in so good a work : And as we can assure the King it is well accepted in 
the several counties from whence we came, so we hope the good effects thereof, for 
the peace, trade, and prosperity of the kingdom, will produce such a concurrence 
from the Parliament, as may secure it to our posterity in after-times : And while 
we live, it shall be our endeavour (through God's grace) to demean ourselves, as ia 
conscience to God, and duty to the King, we are oblig'd, 

His peaceable, loving, and faithful subjects. 

* Life prefixed to Works, vol. i., p. 131. (1726.) 

t Macaulay, vol. ii., p. 234. 

I Burnet's Own Times, vol. i., p. 693. (Ed. 1724) 

§ Idem, p. 714. 



41 

following passage, in one of those letters from Van Citters, the 
Dutch ambassador, from which he so often quotes, which proves 
that Penn's eloquence was exerted the year before the Declara- 
tion, and simply in regard to toleration, he would, though losing 
an opportunity for a sneer at the Quaker, have been saved from 
so glaring a chronological mistake : — " With regard to the point 
" of toleration," writes Van Citters, Westminster, 26 Nov. 1686, " it 
" is reported here that both his Highness and my Lady the Prin- 
** cess have declared in fav^our of it, and that this will be reported 
" in the next Parliament, and that they have discoursed at length 
" thereon with the well-known Pen, the arch Quaker, who is 
" Governor of Pennsylvania, and have declared themselves to 
" this extent on that subject."* 

The reader will now be able to judge how far the epithet *' in- 
" temperate,"! applied by Mr. Macaulay to Penn's labours for re- 
ligious liberty, is warranted by the history of his conduct. Not 
only does that history give no evidence that he abetted the Court 
in any act of cruelty or injustice, or conspired with it in any plot 
to rob the Church or establish tyranny, but it does give evidence 
that he opposed both such special acts and such general policy. 
His remonstrance with the King against his attempt to despoil 

* "Aan Syn Hoogheyt et den Racdpensionaris Van Hollant. 
Westminster den,gp nyr ' 168C. 

Aengaende het point der Tollerantie wort hier nu opcntly voorgegeven, dat soo 
syn Hooglieyt als Mcvrouw de Princes haer daer voercn souden verclaert hcbben, 
en dat men in het aenstaende Parlement dat mede soo debiteren zal, en dat hoogst- 
gedaghte syn hoogheyt met den bekenden Pen die Archiquaecker, wie patron is 
van Pcnsilvania in America, daerover in 't lange sonde gesproken hebben, en den- 
Bclve hem dien aengaende diermatcn, sonde verclaert hebben." — Van Citters^ 
Letter, Dutch Archives. 

+ Macaulay, vol. ii., p. 241. Tliis charge of intemperance had been made 
against Penn in his life-time, and his spirited defence is worth quoting ; — Some 
"nameless autlior had charged him with showing in the late reign an intemperate 
zeal for a boundless liberty of conscience. Not more intemperate," he replied, " in 
tlie reign that favoured it than in the reign I contended with that did not favour it. 
And no man but a persecutor, which I count a beast of prey, and a declared enemy 
to mankind, can, without great injustice or ingratitude, reproach tiiat part I had in 
King James's court ; for I tliink I may say without vanity, upon this provocation, 
I endeavoured at least to do some good, at my own cost, and would have been glad 
to have done more. I am very sure I intended, and I think I did harm to none, 
neither parties nor private persons, my own family excepted, for which I doubt not 
tlic author's pardon, since he shows himself so little concerned for the master of 
it." — Life prefixed to Works, p. 142. 



42 

Magdalen College has been stated above — his desire that he should 
not dispense with Parliament has just been mentioned. Johnstone, 
moreover, in his Correspondence,* expressly states that he advised 
against the most despotic of James's deeds, that order to the 
clergy to read the Declaration, which resulted in the committal 
of the Bishops to the Tower ; and, as to his general policy, we 
have in his favour the testimony of two most unexceptionable 
authorities, both of them cotemporary, and both devoted to the 
Protestant cause. Lord Clarendon informs us, in his Diary,! that 
he laboured to thwart the Jesuitical influence that predominated 
in James's reign, and of this there is most full confirmation in a 
letter from Van Citters, deposited in the State Paper Archives at 
the Hague, in which he writes to the Prince of Orange as fol- 
lows : — " One of these days the well-known Arch Quaker Penn 
" had a long interview with the King, and, as he has told one of 
" his friends, has, he thinks, shown to the King that the Parlia- 
*' ment would never consent to the revocation of the Test and 
" Penal Laws, and that he never would get a Parliament to his 
" mind so long as he would not go to work with greater modera- 
" tion, and drive away from his presence, or at least not listen to 
" these immoderate Jesuits, and other Papists, who surround him 
" daily, and whose immoderate advice he now follows."^ 

This letter was written some time after the proclamation of the 
indulgence (July, 1687,) by a man whose business it was to learn 
the character and sentiments of every person of influence in the 

* Johnstone, 23d May, 1688. This is another fact, which, though quoted by- 
Sir James Mackintosh (p. 241,) is not adverted to by Mr. Macaulay. See also 
another " cotemporary authority, in Mr. Lawton's Memoir of William Penn, in 
Mem. Pen. Hist. Soc, vol, iii. part ii., pages 230, 231," quoted in Bancroft's Hist 
of United States, vol. ii., p. 397 n. : " Penn was against the commitment of the 
Bishops." " He pressed the King exceedingly to set them at liberty " 

t June 23, 1688. 

t " Aan Syn Hoogheyt & Raedpensionaris van Hollant. 

Windsor den, ,„ July, 1687. 

Dezer dagen was den bekenden Archiquaecker Pen zeer lange by den Coning, 
en 300 hy aen een syner vrienden verhaelt heeft soude, soo hy meynt, aen S. M. 
vertoont hebben, dat het Parlement noyt tot vernietieginge van den Test en Poenale 
Wetten sal willen verstaen ook noyt een Parlement tot syn sin krygen, soo hy met 
geen meerder njoderatie wil te werk gaen en van hem eloigneren, immers soo verre 
geen gehoor gcven, die immoderate Jesuyten en Andere Papisten die dagelyks om 
hem zyn en wiens immoderate Concilia hy nu opvolgt." — Van Citters^ Letter, 
Dutch Archives. 



43 

Court, and who had the best opportunity for getting at the truth ; 
and it is therefore somewhat strange that Mr. Macaulay, though 
he acknowledges* the great assistance he has obtained from the 
perusal of his despatches, has so entirely neglected in this case 
also to make use of the information they afford. 

If, then, truth-telling loyalty to his Sovereign, and honest gra- 
titude to his benefactor — if earnest endeavours to rescue his 
brethren from oppression, and to free the consciences of his fellow 
subjects, were acts of intemperance, then was Pcnn's conduct 
" intemperate" evidence that a Court had " impaired his moral 
" sensibility ;" and if the preaching of principles which were not 
practised, because too pure for his age, was a folly, then did his 
political life give " proof that he was not a man of strong sense;" 
but if such be Mr. Macaulay's rule of judgment, he must excuse 
his readers if they apply it to himself. The temptation is irre- 
sistible to appeal from the historian to the politician, and to ask 
him whether " his conscience reproaches" him for his eloquence 
in behalf of freedom of thought — whether he looks back with 
regret, as upon youthful indiscretions, upon any attempts which 
he may have made to aid his country in its progress — to improve 
the imperfect present by holding out the ideal future ? 

True it is that Penn's efforts were unsuccessful — that the King, 
turning a deaf ear to his counsel, was hurled from his throne — 
that Catholic and Dissenter, disregarding his " Good Advice," his 
" Persuasive to Moderation," riveted each of them his own chains 
in striving to fasten them on the neck of the other, and so the 
one kept his Penal Laws and the other his Test Act, and for a 
time Penn's policy was a failure, or rather its accomplishment 
was delayed — until, by abolishing the Test and emancipating the 
Catholics, Mr. Macaulay and his friends succeeded in putting his 
theories into practice. 

Yes, strange as it may seem, to fulfil the visions of that vain 
foolish Quaker have been, ever since his death, the aim, the glory, 
of our best and wisest statesmen. Like as the citizens of Phila- 
delphia are even now building the streets which he planned on 
the unpeopled waste, so are the workmen in the temple of free- 
dom yet labouring at the design which he sketched out. Possibly 
his notions were dreams, but if so, they were at least dreams 

* Macaulay, vol. i., p. 440. 



44 

which Mr. Macaulay would be proud to be told he had spent his 
political life in the effort to realize. 

There now remains for notice only one charge, or rather one 
statement needing examination — for it can scarcely be considered 
a charge — viz., the assertion, that "the Friends" disapproved of 
his conduct, that " even his own sect looked coldly on him, and 
" requited his services with obloquy."* Whether this statement 
be a fact or not is a matter of but little importance, for Quakers 
not being infallible, their good opinion of a line of policy is by no 
means necessary for its defence. It certainly is not improbable 
that Penn may have had " notions more correct than were in his 
" day common," even among " the Friends," and that they also 
may have paid to his superior enlightenment its usual reward of 
obloquy, but, for their credit more than his, it is but fair to state 
that this assertion also is carelessly if not groundlessly made. 

Mr. Macaulay's authority is Gerard Croese, but he, it must be 
remembered, did not belong to the Quakers himself, nor has his 
book ever been acknowledged by them as a fair and exact his- 
tory, and therefore his testimony as to the opinion of their sect 
is of no value, compared with that of their own accredited histo- 
rians, Sewell, Besse, and Gough.f The favourable sentiments 
of the two first-named of these writers, whose means of getting 
information were far superior to any Croese can have possessed, 
have already been quoted, and Gough writes to the same effect; 
and, indeed, Mr. Macaulay would not, it may confidently be 
stated, be able to find, either in the records of the Society of 
Friends, or in any work allowed to be a fair expression of its 
views, or in the journals of any of its leading members, any pas- 
sage which would support his insinuation, but, on the contrary, 
Penn is in these documents always spoken of in terms v/hich 
prove that the " society of which he was a member" loved and 
respected him, or, interpreting their sober reverence into Mr. 
Macaulay's bold and somewhat exaggerated language, " honoured 
" him as an apostle." 

It is possible, indeed, that, inasmuch as the early Friends looked 
upon themselves as a peculiar people set apart to be the special 
servants of Him whose kingdom is not of this world, some of 
them may have looked with uneasiness on his exertions in the 

* Macaulay, vol. i. p. 506. 

t Gouffh's History of the Quakers, vol. iii. p. 179 j vol. iv. pp. 177 to 179. 



45 

service of his country; but even of such uneasiness tlicre is no 
sufficient proof, and had there been, his character would be no 
ways affected, Enough, that the form of his rehgion, his feel- 
ings as a Quaker, did not seem to him to interfere with the ful- 
filment of his duty as a citizen. Had it done so, that form would 
have been changed rather than his work left undone, for he was 
not a man who could make one duty an excuse for shirking an- 
other: within his conscience there was no conflict between the 
claims of religion and patriotism : he did not fly from the world, 
but faced it with true words and true deeds, as one who, as he 
said himself when, during the storm of persecution, he rebuked a 
powerful persecutor, "was above the fear of man, whose breath 
" is in his nostrils, and must one day come to judgment, because 
" he only feared the living God, that made the heavens and the 
" earth."* This reverential fear of God — this it was tliat made 
him fearless of man, that gave him " integrity" to " stand firm 
" against obloquy and persecution," and not against them alone, 
but gave him power over himself, strength to resist temptations 
from within as well as to sustain violence from without ; for it 
must be borne in mind, that he was not one of those who take 
to piety only when wearied of pleasure, ceasing to pluck the rose 
because they have been pricked by its thorns. This " strong sense 
" of religious duty" was not his because his other senses were 
weak, or because he had satiated them ; nor did he refrain from 
enlisting himself in the service of God till he had proved Mam- 
mon to be a hard master, but, in the strength of his passions, he 
controlled them : in the spring-time of life, when the prizes of 
pleasure and ambition were before him, he chose the path of self- 
denial, and walked in it to the end. Hear his own simple and 
touching account of the experiences of his youth, as he thought 
it right to relate them to some God-fearing men whom he met 
with in his travels, in order, as he said, that " those who were 
" come to any measure of a divine sense" might be " as looking- 
" glasses to each other, as face answereth face in a glass."! 
" Here I began to let them know," he says, " how and when the 
"Lord first appeared unto me (anno 1656,) which was about the 
" twelfth year of my age ; how at times, betwixt that and the fif- 

* Letter to Vice Chancellor of Oxford : Works, vol. i. p. 155. 
+ Life prefixed to Works, p. 92. 



46 

" teenth, the Lord visited me, and the divine impressions he gave 
"me of himself; of my persecution at Oxford, and how the Lord 
*' sustained me in the midst of that hellish darkness and debauch- 
"ery ; of my being banished the College; the bitter usage I un- 
" derwent when I returned to my father : whipping, beating, and 
"turning out of doors in 1662; of the Lord's dealings with me 
" in France, and in the time of the Great Plague in London : in 
" fine, the deep sense he gave me of the vanity of this world, of 
" the irreligiousness of the religions of it. Then, of my mournful 
" and bitter cries to him, that he would show me His own way 
" of life and salvation, and my resolutions to follow him, whatever 
" reproaches or suiferings should attend me, and that with great 
" reverence and brokenness of spirit. How, after all this, the 
" glory of the world overtook me, and I was even ready to give 
" up myself unto it, seeing as yet no such thing as the Primitive 
" Spirit and Church on the earth, and being ready to faint con- 
" cerning my hope of the restitution of all things," had not " at 
" this time the Lord visited me with a certain sound and testi- 
" mony of His eternal word, through one of these the world calls 
" Quakers, namely, Thomas Loe." And then " I related to them 
" the bitter mockings and scornings that fell upon me, the dis- 
" pleasure of my parents, the invectiveness and cruelty of the 
" priests, the strangeness of all my companions ; what a sign and 
" wonder they made of me ; but above all, that great cross of 
" resisting and watching against mine own inward vain affections 
" and thoughts." 

And this son of a courtier, who thus preferred a prison to a 
court — who chose as the companions of his youth, men, whose 
very name was a byeword of scorn,* who until his forty-first 
year had led a life of consistent self-control, and proved his sin- 
cerity by his sufferings and sacrifices, can it be believed that he 
could have thus suddenly found his " resolution give way," even 
though " courtly smiles and female blandishments" had been 
" offered" as " bribes to his vanity ?" 

* "A Quaker," or " some very melancholy thing," Pepys describes him in his 
Diary (December 29, 16G7), on his return from Ireland. "A very pleasant fact, to 
Pepys, who hated the Admiral, and rejoiced in his perplexities at his son's religion, 
but, doubtless, in his eyes, a strange fancy to be taken by the youth, who, three 
years before (Djary, August 16, 1664), " had come back from France a most modish 
person, grown, my wife says, a fine gentleman." 



47 

Mr. Macaulay's faith in human virtue must indeed have been 
sorely tried — his estimate of the strength of religious duty must 
be but slight — or, instead of suspecting "the eminent virtues of 
" such a man," he would have questioned the probability of so 
strange a fall. But, like most men who are over-doubting in one 
direction, he is too believing in another, for, if he has little faith 
in the truth of Penn's professions, he has at least a firm confi- 
dence in the certainty of his own suspicions — if he be sceptical 
of virtue, he compensates for it by being credulous of vice ; and 
so, if he refuses to listen to the concurrent testimony of " rival 
" nations and hostile sects," he yet gives full credence to the in- 
sinuations of party prejudice, and makes up for his disbelief in 
the general estimate of Penn's character by an admission of 
charges, respecting which it is hard to discover the facts of which 
they are the distortion. 

But the voice of history cannot be thus silenced: she has already 
recorded her judgment, from which there is no appeal ; nor should 
Mr. Macaulay cavil at its justice, for, strange as it may seem to 
him, there is in it no mystery. 

This Quaker was a strong and a brave, and therefore a free 
man : he ruled himself, and fearing God, feared no other ; and so 
he made posterity his debtor, for, that spirit which won freedom 
for himself, he left to it as a legacy, and there is no fear that the 
debt due to him will be unpaid, so long as the inheritance re- 
mains. 

The memory of good men is sacred : we treasure it, as we 
value our safety in the present — our hope for the future, for, on 
what, after all, depends our national freedom, of which Mr. Ma- 
caulay so often and so loudly vaunts ? — most assuredly not, as he 
would seem to think,* on the limitations of the prerogative of our 
rulers, handed down to us from our ancestors, but on that spirit 
of individual justice, which, inasmuch as it breathed in their 
hearts, made that freedom both possible and necessary, of the 
strength whereof these limitations were and are the exact mea- 
sure. It is not to the fact that for ages past Englishmen have 
had the habit of preventing their kings from taking tlieir money, 
or making or breaking laws at their pleasure, that they owe what 



* Macaulay, vol. i., chap. 1. 



48 

liberties they possess. These "three great constitutional prin- 
•* ciples,"* as Mr. Macaulay calls them, are indeed the signs of 
our freedom, their prevalence has been the measure of its growth, 
but to suppose them to be its origin is to commit the absurdity 
of taking the effect for the cause. Individual self-government, 
that alone is the cause of national freedom — the source and 
guarantee of the liberty of the subject — for that alone makes 
personal liberty compatible vv^ith social order; and of this powder 
of self-control, the force whereof gauges the freedom of all go- 
vernments, and without which all constitutions — yes, even the 
"glorious constitution of 1688" — are mere waste-paper, of this 
power the highest possible ideal is " a strong sense of religious 
" duty." 

Alas, then, for our liberties, if ever, as a nation, we follow the 
example of Mr. Macaulay, and reverence, in place of this spirit, 
those forms which are but its expression, for then indeed will they 
become to us a mockery and a stumbling-block, but until we do 
so, there is no fear that we shall forget that " for the authority of^ 
" law, for the security of property, for the peace of our streets, 
" for the happiness of our homes, our gratitude is due," not alone 
" to the Long Parliament, to the Convention, and to WiUiam of 
"Orange,"f — to them indeed, but if to them, then also to that 
" mythical person," whose life, grotesque as may have been its 
garb, was, more than that of any politician of his day, the in- 
carnation of this spirit of self-control, and whose words and deeds 
yet dwell within our memories as witnesses of its power. 

* Macaulay, vol. j., p. 29. t Macaulay, concluding paragraph of vol. ii. 



THE END. 



